


an evening i will not forget

by shuhannon



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Canonical Character Death, Cousin Incest, Cousins, F/M, Forbidden Love, Growing Up Together, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Kylo Ren and Rey Are Related, Rey Skywalker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:20:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23366074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shuhannon/pseuds/shuhannon
Summary: For a moment it all seems normal. Like it had back when they were kids.She looks across the fire again only to find him gone, his retreating form already becoming consumed by the shadows and night.Typical, she can’t help but to think. Watching him walk away has become something to expect. It’s part of the routine, the back and forth game they play.Except this time she can’t chase after him, can’t tease and plead until he comes back. They’re not kids anymore. He’s made choices and so has she. She’s not his keeper, not his tether. After all, if she’s not reason enough for him to stay, why should she be the one to keep bringing him back?***ben returns home after the death of his father,  and is faced with some familiar memories and demons that won't go away. most of which come in the form of his cousin and childhood best friend, rey.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey & Ben Solo, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 12
Kudos: 78





	an evening i will not forget

**Author's Note:**

> hi this is what happens when they're in quarantine, laid off from your job, and drinking wine on a friday night while listening to the dermot kennedy playlist on spotify.
> 
> title and fic inspired by 'an evening i will not forget' by dermot kennedy. his voice is gorgeous and everyone should go listen.
> 
> as stated in the tags, rey and ben are cousins in this fic. also warning for brief mentions of underage sex (they're both consenting seventeen year olds)

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/182242012@N03/49709206253/in/dateposted-public/)

The fire crackles, embers sparking and jumping from the home of the campfire. They land somewhere in the dirt, disappearing and being rendered into nothing. Because embers are useless when they wander away too far from the heart of the flames. They become lost and forgotten. 

Sort of like him.

As if he can read her mind, their eyes meet over the fire. She holds his gaze, doesn’t dare to blink or breathe.

Then someone speaks. Laughter follows. Her name is called, forcing her to break eye contact. She turns, her ponytail swishing, a forced smile on her face as laughter falls from her lips. A pack of marshmallows are chucked in her direction, and she catches them, ready with a teasing response.

For a moment it all seems normal. Like it had back when they were kids.

She looks across the fire again only to find him gone, his retreating form already becoming consumed by the shadows and night.

Typical, she can’t help but to think. Watching him walk away has become something to expect. It’s part of the routine, the back and forth game they play. 

Except this time she can’t chase after him, can’t tease and plead until he comes back. They’re not kids anymore. He’s made choices and so has she. She’s not his keeper, not his tether. After all, if she’s not reason enough for him to stay, why should she be the one to keep bringing him back?   
  


***

This place is full of memories. Ghosts fill every corner. Some good, some bad.

Coming back always feels like the right decision and the biggest mistake. But maybe that’s just because of him, because of the demons he’s refused to face, opted instead to bury deep down, in the hope that, if he cuts off their oxygen supply, they’ll just shrivel up and die.

And it has worked. To a point. Going through the motions of life has begun to feel like actual fucking living. Soon, things will even start to seem good, he’s sure of it. He will feel as if he’s finally on the right track.

But then comes the trigger. There’s always a trigger. 

Sometimes it's something small: seeing a kid with a giant slushy, their tongue and teeth tinted blue. Sometimes it’s seeing brown hair pulled back into a bun or two, or a woman with hazel eyes and a smattering of freckles.

Sometimes he’s in a bar or a coffee shop and he swears he hears her laugh ringing in his ears. Sometimes he even turns and expects to see her, standing there instead of being three thousand miles away, across the country in another state, another time zone.

Because of course, she’s where she belongs. She knows exactly where she needs to be. She sticks to the plan.

He’s the wild card. He’s the one that said fuck this town, fuck their friends, fuck his family, and fuck this life. He’s the one that ran away, hoping to never look back. It had been a good plan. It would have been successful, would have worked, except he hadn’t factored in one thing; he hadn’t counted on her choosing to stay instead of choosing him.

But she had. She’d stayed and he’d gone, and now? Now he’s back. Now he’s trying to find his footing, to step back into stride.

The town hasn’t changed. There’s the path down to the beach, the high school where he had crossed the stage at Graduation, with her just a name or two behind him. There’s the library where they would race bikes as kids, taking advantage of the empty parking lot and late summer nights. It was where Rey had skinned her knees trying to keep up with Ben’s flips and jumps.

Yeah, so much of it has stayed the same. Even the Blockbuster still stands, though it’s called Family Video now, and he can’t help but wonder if it’s the last video rental store left in the state, maybe the entire pacific northwest. 

It’s practically a relic now, in this day of Netflix and On-Demand.

There’s the same diner too, where they used to grab late night bites to eat. She would get breakfast, always breakfast, with copious amounts of whipped cream covering every surface, some where the sugary topping didn’t belong. 

He would get a burger, usually with some fries, sometimes a cheesesteak, but always some sort of meat between two pieces of bread.

The food was never important to him. Most of the time he wasn’t even hungry. He went because of her, her and her appetite that never seemed to be sated. He would take a couple of bites of his burger and she would devour most of his fries, balancing the sugar overload of her blueberry pancakes or peanut butter and chocolate waffles with the salty savoriness of the thinly cut, deep fried potatoes.

They would sit in a corner booth, the table top sticky and the vinyl beginning to tear. They would talk. He would tease her; his humor was dry but it would always make her laugh. Fuck, he loved making her laugh.

Then, only once her stomach was deemed full, and they had dumped the leftovers into styrofoam boxes, would they finally go, leaving crumpled dollar bills and whatever change they could find in their pockets.

On good nights, she would still be laughing as they clambered into his car. On those nights he would let her drive, and let himself get distracted by the way she would throw her head back, revealing the long expanse of her throat.

The best nights of all were the ones when they would park at the Summer Faire grounds, usually empty apart from two months out of the year. They would park the car and she would laugh, the sound breathless and as light as the ringing of bells, while his heart threatened to beat a hole in his chest. Together they would tumble into the backseat, stripping away layer after layer from one another's skin.

It was in the back of the Falcon that he kissed every inch of her, tracing every curve and line with first his fingers and then his tongue.

Then there were the nights which weren’t as good. Nights that they ended up bickering over everything, from her choice of food to his bad attitude. Those nights were punctuated by the slamming of car doors. How she would bolt, leaving him behind the moment he pulled into her driveway, before the tires could even fully stop moving along the gravel.

Those were the nights when he would return home, his hands curled into fists and his face flushed with anger.

“Have a nice time with your cousin, sweetheart?” His mother would call from her perch on the couch, or from behind her desk in her home office. But he would ignore her, would just storm up to his room and round up the terrible night with one final slam of a door, hiding in his bedroom and smothering his muffled screams of frustration with his pillow.

In the end, the bad nights had begun to outweigh the good; the noise of doors slamming had slowly drowned out the sound of laughter.

Maybe that’s what had made it so easy to leave. What had made it so hard to stay.

He stops looking around the town, trying to spot changes or similarities. He stops trying to remember. Instead he settles into autopilot mode, driving his rental car along the familiar backroads, past mountain ranges and tall trees, their branches green and lush.

He doesn’t look at any of it, just keeps his eyes trained straight ahead.

Still, even the familiar sound of the gravel under his tires brings memories with it, as he turns the car onto the long lane that ends with his childhood home.

That’s the first time he slows the car down, bringing it to a complete stop, because of choice rather than traffic. He allows his head to turn, to look out the driver side window.

Her house looks the same, with it’s white doors and A-frame silhouette nestled between tall hemlocks, a short way back from the lane. Even the same red pick up truck is parked in front, though now it has a hood over the cab. A light is on, casting a warm glow. The yellow beacon is shining from one of the upstairs windows. Her window. Her room.

Suddenly he’s ten again, flashing morse code with a flashlight at her, telling her to meet him in  _ their spot _ , to bring her bike. They end up trying to ride through the woods, flashlights taped to their helmets, and the sound of their laughter ringing through the otherwise quiet night air.

He’s thirteen, throwing pebbles at the window pane and whispering in the loudest voice he can muster for her to come down. She does, wearing a sweatshirt over her tee shirt, her pajama bottoms tucked into rubber boots. They end up walking along the beach and he tells her how he fought with his parents again. How the fighting between him and them is getting worse and, in turn, how now  _ they _ are fighting more than ever.

He’s seventeen and he’s scaling the drainpipe, and she’s giggling as her fingers grip his arms, his wrist, the collar of his tee shirt, tugging and pulling him into her bedroom through the window where their bodies hit the floor with a thud. They freeze, paranoid. Because his uncle can’t catch them. Because it would be worse than her just sneaking a boy into her room after curfew. It would turn into something so much bigger. It would ruin it all.

But as the house remains still and quiet so they begin to explore one another with their mouths and their hands, relishing in the fact that they’re not cramped into the backseat of his car. That they have a bed and he has until sunrise to strip her naked, to worship her body until it’s flushed and smelling of sweat and his cum.

_ Stay quiet, _ he used to whisper in her ear.  _ He can’t hear us. _ And she would nod, would obey, despite the relentless pace he set, thrusting into her time and time again; despite how many fingers he slipped into her dripping cunt, stretching her out and seeing how much she could take without moaning his name.

He’s nineteen and he’s parked right outside her house. He keeps calling her, over and over again, but she refuses to pick up. He swears, chucks his phone into the backseat, not caring if it breaks  _ again _ . He gets out, storming from the car, the door slamming shut behind him. The rain is falling in buckets, as if the skies have opened up in grief, because, after all, what else could make this already shitty day any worse?

Except she doesn’t answer when he pounds his fist on her front door. She doesn’t come when he throws rocks at her windows. The lights are out, the doors are locked.

He waits for almost an hour in the pouring rain, his clothes drenched and his dark hair sticking to his cheeks, his forehead, his neck.

“Go home.” His uncle calls, finally stepping out onto the porch. “She doesn’t want to talk to you.”

And he can’t argue back. He can’t explain why he has to, why they can’t leave it the way they did. Of course not. Because Luke is her father. It’s not like he can tell his uncle about why they fought, how he wants to run away with her after graduation, wants them to leave together and start over, each be someone new. A fresh start. A new life. One where they don’t have to hide, where they can be open with their feelings. A life where he can hold her hand as they walk down the street. Where he can kiss her in the movie theater without worrying about being spotted, being caught.Where he can introduce her as his girlfriend, his fiance, his wife. Not his cousin.

He can’t explain to Luke that he is offering her the world, and she is turning her back on him. All because she wants to stay here, to stay at their home, to be close to their family.

_ “But I’m your family-” He pleads, stepping forward, his voice desperate as his body crowds around her own. “I thought you loved me. You said you loved me.” _

_ “I do-” The words crack as her fingers weave between his. “I do love you. But I love them too.” _

The rain keeps falling but he doesn’t feel the cold anymore. He doesn’t feel much of anything at all as he turns to go back into his car.

No, he feels one thing. He feels defeat.

In the present day, he presses his foot on the gas and continues the journey down the driveway, his eyes once again fixed upon the future, not the past.

***

It’s Poe’s idea to invite him down to the beach.

“Like the good old days! C’mon. He’s your family.” He proclaims before he plows ahead, making arrangements. All action without any discussion, which is the definition of Poe. It’s great when you want to get something done, but the rest of the time it feels like too much is happening out of her control. It feels like she can’t throw any idea out into the air because he will take it and run with it, moving at full force.

Poe only has one setting, and that is full speed ahead.

Now she just feels exhausted by it.

But she throws on a smile and nods because what else is she going to do? She can’t say no, not at this point. He’s right. He’s family. How did that old saying go? You can pick your friends and your nose but not your family? Besides, it would be turning it into a  _ big deal _ which would mean she cares and she doesn’t care. She  _ can’t  _ care. Not anymore.

Anyway, she doesn’t think he will actually say yes. He’s good at excuses. Fuck, he’s good at not showing up after he promises to come.

But lo and behold, there he stands on the pebbly beach, wearing dark jeans and an equally dark tee shirt along with a pair of boots that probably cost more than her utility bills for a month. His hands are shoved into his pockets and he looks lost as fuck, as if he doesn’t know how to socialize or interact with a group of people anymore, even though he’s known most of these his whole life.

At first it gives her satisfaction. It’s selfish, but she doesn’t care. For a moment she relishes in his clearly uncomfortable state. Then the guilt begins to sink in, working her stomach into knots and urging her teeth to worry at her lip.

It’s becoming harder to stay away. Her instincts are telling her to save him, to talk to him, to take his hand and bring him over to the fire, show him that he can do this, that it’ll be alright.

But that’s not her place anymore.

She hangs back, sipping beer from a red plastic cup, despite the fact there’s nothing left but warm froth. Her eyes keep darting towards him, keep checking in on him, even as she chats with Finn, even as she roasts hot dogs on the bonfire, and as she catches up with Jessika and Kay, both who she hasn’t seen in a couple years.

Then she sees Rose approach him and her body goes rigid. She freezes, her vision suddenly becoming a tunnel fixed on them and only them. Rose has always been good with him. Firm but polite. They exchange a few words, and, even with just the cast of firelight over his face, she can make out the roll of his eyes and the way he works his jaw. But she must hold her ground. She watches as the other woman’s hands briefly position over her hips.

Then Rose is walking away, and after a moment he is following her.

Her body should feel relaxed, after the beer, but instead she feels wired, on edge. The thing is, Rose  _ has _ always been good with him. They would be good together, would balance each other out. She is the type of woman that could soothe and control his flames. Not like her. No, she was gasoline to his fucking fire, the pair of them destined to burn everything down, to destroy it all in their wakes.

She forces her attention to other things, and eventually she’s able to force her concentration elsewhere. She keeps busy. She refills her cup with fresh beer, after pouring the remnants of foam from her cup onto the sand. She even laughs at one of Poe’s jokes and allows Finn to lead her over to where a bluetooth speaker is perched on top of the cooler, so they can begin to recreate a routine they had mastered back in high school.

For a while she almost forgets that he’s even there.

But then her eye catches his over that fire. Then she sees him walking away.

_ Just stay put, _ reason speaks in her mind.  _ Have fun. Enjoy your friends. Let him go. _

Instead she rises to her feet, half drunk beer left in the sand.

“Where’re you going?” Finn calls after her but she waves him off, offers a forced, tight smile.

“I’ll be right back.”

Famous last words.

***

This is the same beach. The one where all the parties went on during high school. They would sneak down when they were lowly freshmen, not invited but too curious to stay away. They would hide by the sand dunes, sneaking cans of beer once everyone else was too drunk to question them or care.

_ “This tastes like shit.” He proclaims after his first sip, but she merely pushes the can straight back into his hands. “It’ll get better. Keep drinking.” She encourages between giggles. _

_ His eye catches hers and for a moment all he can do is stare at her, taking in the sight of her freckles, the flecks of gold in her hazel eyes, the wisps of windblown hair haloing around her hairline, loose from the trademark three buns that she wears at the back of her head. _

_ “Okay.” He takes another sip, and she’s right. It doesn’t taste as bad. It doesn’t taste good but somehow it seems better. _

_ They return to their game, spying on the upperclassman, imagining what conversations they're having, who’s going to end up in a fight before the party ends, who’s going to end up kissing who. _

_ “Hux and Phasma.” _

_ She wrinkles her nose and he forces himself to look away. He has to look away because it hurts too much, how cute she looks. _

_ “No way! They fight like cat and dog.” _

_ “So do we.” The words are out of his mouth before he can process what he’s saying. His cheeks flush, and he clears his throat. _

_ “We’re not kissing.” She replies, but her voice is soft and low. Almost as if she wouldn’t mind, almost as if she wasn’t disgusted by the idea. _

_ “No,” His tongue darts out, wetting his lips. “No, we’re not.” _

***

“You came back.” 

It’s a statement not a question, and for a while he doesn’t respond. What’s he supposed to say? That he wished he hadn’t? That he should never have left? That he was a big enough asshole to miss his father’s funeral but of course he came back for the reading of the will?

There were already enough whispers about that. Greedy, they called him. Selfish. Ungrateful.

Then again it wasn’t anything new. They were the same old words that had been hissed behind his back for years. He had never been a good enough son, always too selfish, always just thinking of himself. Always wanting more. They could never give enough, could never do enough, could never make things right.

Except all he had wanted was them. Their time, their attention. All he had wanted was to feel loved and accepted and…

What does it matter now though? Han is dead. Leia is still trying but not really seeing him.

Nothing has changed.

Except for  _ her _ . She’s changed.

Her smile doesn’t shine as bright, doesn’t quite reach her eyes anymore. She throws her head back and laughs, she drinks with her friends on the beach and dances, yet it all seems a step off, a beat behind. She’s going through the motions too; he’d recognized the familiar, tell-tale signs as he’d watched her, shoulders bumping with Finn, sand flying around her feet as she’d regained her footing.

Except nothing about  _ them _ has changed. That ship has sailed, has sunk to the bottom of the deep, dark sea.

“Do you remember when we were ten?” He stands, hands in his pockets, facing the inky, curling waves rather than her. “He brought home those kites. Probably got them at some gas station along the way.”

“They were shaped like dragons.” She comes up beside him, still keeping a good perimeter of space between them. “You were reading the Lord of the Rings, and we had spent the entire summer pretending we were elves and hobbits, running around the woods.”

He nods his head, a soft smile gracing his lips. The kind that doesn’t stretch across his lips but instead passes by briefly, just enough to make the corners of his eyes crinkle. “I barely had my kite in the sky for ten minutes. I kept letting more and more string out.”

“Han told you to stop.” She murmurs. “He hung back but kept warning you that it was going to get pulled away.”

“I didn’t listen.” He snorts, sarcastic and dry. For what else was new? Ben never listened. He had never done what he was told. “The breeze got stronger, started pulling the kite towards the ocean.”

“It was cold, that day. Blustery. You got soaking wet trying to keep hold of it.”

“Han kept telling me to let it go. But I wouldn’t.”

“You did eventually-”

“Because you told me to. You yelled that I had to let it go.” His head turns. He studies her profile, lit by the moon shining up above. “So I let it go.”

She doesn’t respond, just purses her lips and drops her gaze to the waves as they break into foam at their feet, then retreat back out.

“I always listened to you.”

Her eyes meet his. “Except then you stopped.”

***

_ “Hey… It’s, uh, me. I wasn’t sure if your number changed. I’m not even sure if this is still you. Leia keeps trying to get a hold of you. She says she’s left you messages but you’re not returning her calls. You just… you need to come home, okay? He’s not doing good. Hospice is here and they… they’re not sure it’s going to be long. And she needs you, okay? We really need you. So just, please. Come home.” _

***

_ “I know you’re getting my messages. You can’t just keep ignoring this and pretending it’s not happening. Do you think I want this to happen?! No. But I’m here. I’m trying to hold it all together and just… please. Come home. Please. We can’t do this alone. All the past shit… It’s just… it doesn’t matter right now. Come home.” _

***

_ “You’re a sonuvabitch, you know that?! Total asshole. This is low, even for you. Can’t even show up for your own father’s fucking funeral? You’ve really done it this time. Of all the shitty things you’ve done, you just- Fuck you. Okay? Fuck you.” _

***

The air has a chill in it now that wasn’t there before. They’re further from the fire, and she moves to rub her hands along her arms, trying to use friction to stay warm.

Without saying a word, he’s shrugging out of his jacket. She begins to protest, shaking her head, the word ‘no’ on the tip of her tongue, but he’s already draping it over her shoulders and not only is it warm, but it smells familiar, like him and campfire smoke and the salty sea.

It smells like something else too. A rich tobacco smell mixed with oil. A familiar smell that belonged to someone else. Someone who has been buried beneath the earth for weeks…

“Is this his?” She runs her fingers over the thick flannel, soft due to wear and age. “I remember this. He always wore it out in the garage when he was tinkering around.”

Now it’s his turn to stay silent, to stare out at the ocean. She watches his lips shift and then part, his hands moving to poise over his lips. He kicks at a stray pebble, then kicks at the ground with the toe of his boot over and over again.

“Ben-” His name sounds foreign on her tongue. It’s been so long since she said it, let alone said it to him.

He keeps moving, keeps kicking at the waves and the rocks and the sand. Then he just stops, he just stands there and suddenly she’s at his side, wrapping her arms around his waist, pulling him into an embrace.

“Rey-”

The dam begins to break. Bit by bit, layer after layer is peeled away, until nothing is left but the pain, the sorrow, the regret. His body shakes against hers, wracked with silent sobs. She feels wetness on her cheeks, and she’s uncertain if the tears belong to him or her. Maybe both.

“I still love you though.” He’s whispering into her ear, his voice hoarse and cracking.

“I love you too.” She murmurs, her face tilted in, her lips brushing against his cheek. “Always.”

They stand there, bodies clinging to one another, holding each other as if their embrace is the sanctuary they both need to be able to weather this storm.

This doesn’t fix anything. This doesn’t amend past mistakes, doesn’t magically make everything better. But the least she can do is hold him while he’s home, while he’s a part of her life. And the least he can do is hold her in return.

It’s all they have. It’s all they can do: to grasp at straws and hold onto moments of time like this, clinging as if it’s all they live for.

But that’s okay. They’ve gotten by on less before. They’ve lived off of crumbs and scraps for years. This? This feels like a whole damn meal.

And for now, this is enough.

***

Time begins to pass. They continue to stand there, a tangle of limbs. The party dies down behind them, yet no one bothers to approach. After all, this is tradition too, for Ben to wander off, Rey right on the heel of each one of his steps; for them to go off, just the two of them. Because no one else understands it, understands them, not like they understand each other. 

“Two halves of a whole,” Leia used to say, a wistful look on her face.

“Different sides of the same coin.” Luke would agree, watching his daughter and his nephew disappear out back, becoming lost in the woods and their game of pretend. “Same soul. Just split into two.”

**Author's Note:**

> all comments/kudos appreciated! also feel free to follow me on [twitter](https://www.twitter.com/shuhannon)


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